Call it the battle of the titans.
Billionaire Warren Buffett
insists that Hillary Clinton will be the next president of these United States.
Billionaire Jim Rogers guarantees
that it will not happen.
As of yesterday, Rogers seemed to
be more prescient.
Speaking at a Massachusetts rally
in support of gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley, Hillary declared:
Don’t let anybody tell you that raising the
minimum wage will kill jobs,” Clinton said. They always say that.
As Bryan Preston notes, the “they”
in question is the Congressional Budget Office. It has predicted that raising
the minimum wage will destroy half a million jobs.
Hillary continued by showing off
her understanding of economics.
Preston quotes:
“My husband gave working families a raise in the
1990s,” Clinton said, saying she herself voted for raising the minimum wage
when she served as a senator from New York. “Don’t let anybody tell you that
it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs.”
Now we know, Hillary Clinton does
not believe that businesses create jobs. Doubtless she will quickly walk back
this piece of nonsense. And the press will probably not hold her
to account.
For all I know, Warren Buffet
might be right. Hillary might well be the next POTUS. But before that happens,
she will have to find a way to keep her foot out of her mouth.
Awsome... I was looking forward to voting for President What-Difference-Does-It-Make.
ReplyDeleteNow I can also vote for President My-Husband-Validates-My-Positions.
how can anyone possibly listen to this rapist enabling shrew who not only is well past her prime but from the looks of things never had one ...
ReplyDeleteIs Jim Rogers really a billionaire?
ReplyDeleteThese pages say Net Worth: $300 Million, but doesn't have a date.
http://www.therichest.com/celebnetworth/celebrity-business/men/jim-rogers-net-worth/
http://celebsnetworth.net/jim-rogers-net-worth/
Maybe Rogers should have stuck with real billionaire Saros?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Group_of_Funds
The Quantum Group of Funds are privately owned hedge funds based in Curaçao (Netherlands Antilles) and Cayman Islands. They are currently advised by George Soros through his company Soros Fund Management. Soros started the fund in 1973 in partnership with Jim Rogers.
In regards to the minimum wage, the CBO report goes back to February. It does sound like job and wage predictions are not exactly a science, and sounds more like propaganda on both sides.
ReplyDeleteMostly I have no will to fight against raising the minimum wage. It seems like the Republics shouldn't fight against the Democrats so vigorously. What's the downside, if the Democrats raise the minimum wage?
Oh, right, poor people might think voting for Democrats is better than not voting at all, and might continue the steady decline of the republican party. I get it now.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/02/18/cbo-minimum-wage-jobs/5582779/
Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the sponsor of legislation to raise the wage to $10.10, issued a lengthy critique of the CBO report.
"More than 600 economists, including seven Nobel Prize laureates, recently affirmed the growing consensus that low-wage workers benefit from modest increases in the minimum wage without negative consequences for the low-wage job market," Harkin said, adding that his legislation would increase wages for 28 million workers, and create 85,000 new jobs.
Businesses created jobs long before governments got in the business of doing infrastructure jobs. Before the building of the Erie canal project roads, et al were built by private businesses and it was they who took the gains or losses. Once governments got involved we created the situation for bigger and stronger centralized governments with all of the problems that are extant in statism.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that one can find any number of people that will say yea or nay on any side of an issue. That is the trouble with so called experts. One of the reasons for thinking through how money flows and understanding the "multiplicative factor of money." Ideally we should be putting our money where it will have the greatest affect throughout the economy. The kicker here is that people, in some cases, do not act in a rational manner.
One of the reason that we have to keep readdressing the issue of the minimum wage is that they economy always adjusts to the current minimum wage by raising the average wage which in the long run leaves those on the bottom quintile where they were or worse off. NOTE: People do move up and down the quintile ladder which makes sense when one figures that when one is young one starts at lower wages, as one progress one will move up through each quintile, reach a top point, retire and go to a lower level. There are many factors that affect how people progress.
In the short run people in the bottom quintile will gain a small amount while others will suffer a loss employment especially first time workers who have little or no work skills.
Far too much short run thinking that almost always forces us to readdress the same problems over and over again vice long term solutions that aid far more people and tend to raise other people as well.
Government provides jobs: See Communism. Old phrase I remember reading: "They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work."
ReplyDeleteIn our little town, we all get by by taking in each others' washing.
My parents always set aside money toward their future well being. The income from bank savings was about the same as their income from SSA. Now they have taken at least an 80% cut of income from that source. Is saving for your future so unusual? What do the prize winners say how raising the minimum wage helps those who set aside for their future.
ReplyDeleteAres Olympus @October 26, 2014 at 3:35 AM
ReplyDelete"What's the downside, if the Democrats raise the minimum wage?"
Jobs. That's all. The Democrats haven't cared about real job growth for the last six years, and have proved it with just about every policy decision they've pursued.
It is amusing you would use Senator Tom Harkin as a credible source to counter anything coming out of the CBO... or anywhere else, for that matter. The idea that a raise in the minimum wage would "create" jobs is simply laughable. Preposterous. He speaks of a "market" that does not exist in this universe. The "low-wage job market" is exactly where you will see losses if this rent-seeking comes to pass, as low-skill workers are those making minimum wage. It is unwise to raise wages when there will be no additional benefit to the employer, especially with all the uncertainty swirling around ObamaCare. The employer will hire fewer employees, seek automation, or (if that company is an extremely low-profit industry) simply close up shop or move offshore. Lastly, the whole $10.10 minimum wage suggestion is designed to reach voters who like concepts with two syllables. It's silly. Why $10.10? Why not more? If Harkin claims $10.10 will "create" more jobs, why not $11.11? It's only a buck more! What harm could it do? By his logic, it would create 80,000 more jobs. If we're living through the "decline of the Republican Party," who cares what happens to real people who need jobs? After all, the minimum wage issue "polls well." How about $13.13? Perhaps because 13 is an unlucky number? Okay, how about 14.92? No, that's bad because of the evil dead white guy Christopher Columbus. The McDomald's workers want $15.00 per hour for entry-level work. I'm sure Harkin sympathizes with their plight. After all, Harkin knows. He's been in Congress for 40 years! He's never had to make payroll, he just knows how the labor market works because he's a genius. Being in the Senate for 30 years has that effect on people.
Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD, re: Why $10.10? Why not more?
ReplyDeleteIndeed, that's an important question, even as it has no clear answers. The only honest answer is from libertarians and market fundamentalists who will say "no minimum wage."
It's nice for you and Republicans to care about job losses, but that's part of my point. If the Democrats want to propose an outrageous minimum wage, and it causes job losses, then Republicans can object, but step aside with their disapproval and have "I told you so" rights later.
They can use the issue against the Democrats, and gain the Senate majority and Presidency, and then offer their market solution of no minimum wage, and we'll see if that works better.
Myself, I do think state minimum wages are a better solution, since there are wide differences in cost of living by state.
I don't know if a national $9 or $10.10 or whatever magic number is good or bad for the economy or jobs, but if a majority of Americans support a higher minimum wage, then it sounds like an experiment ripe for action.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/165794/americans-raising-minimum-wage.aspx
I don't mind the libertarian arguments, but I also don't mind the authoritarian arguments either. There are two ways to live - by demanding special treatment, or by adapting to what rules are given to you.
People on the bottom can and will adapt to what they are given, and employers can and will adapt to what they are given.
Sometimes it's fun to fight against collective authority that seem to cause you problems, but sometimes fighting wastes more effort than just submitting to the higher authority and getting on with it.
Myself, I tend to think protectionism is going to return with a vengence before too long, and it will be a necessary evil against the chaos of global markets that can dump vast inventories on the world and take out any local industry that can't afford to sell for a loss.
The authortarian questions like the ideal minimum wage seems like peanuts compared to the real problems we're going to face in a race to the bottom as globalism fails in the next 20 years.